GREENBERG

Greenberg is a movie about repellant people that just so happens to be fascinating, but only if you are into movies about extreme head cases. “I am really trying to do nothing for awhile,” Roger says, “I am doing nothing deliberately.” Stiller, as the title character Roger Greenberg, hasn’t been doing anything for years. He’s in his forties now, and hasn’t been on the verge of success since he was 25, when he almost signed a record deal but refused to cave in on the label’s compromises. The movie isn’t about his music.


Dare we say aloud what “Greenberg” is about or what Noah Baumbach’s last movie “Margot at the Wedding” was about? Hmm, no it takes too much nerve off the bat to say what it is really about. But I’ll offer my two cents later. Let’s first say that Roger’s aforementioned key quote, as implemented in the trailer, could be the attraction for audiences. Coming out of Stiller’s mouth, it sounds like a funny idea for a movie.

This is not a typical Ben Stiller movie (think 180 degrees opposite of “Zoolander.”) It is funny, but understand, it is mordantly funny. Most obviously is when Roger drafts letters to Starbucks and American Airlines as to why their superficial trendiness or small oversights in customer satisfaction merits renovation. The rest of the film’s humor is not so obvious, nor would some audiences find it funny at all. Not unless one has a taste for mordant humor.

Roger has just flown in from New York to housesit for his brother Phillip in the Hollywood Hills while he and his wife vacation in Vietnam for six weeks. The regular caretaker is the attractive and slightly plump blonde Florence (Greta Gerwig), nearly twenty years younger, whom Roger immediately leeches on. They are close to sharing intimate relations on a first and then second occasion, but then after Roger tells her “that is the dumbest story I’ve ever heard…” and “why tell me that?” he walks out on her with extremely bitter body language.

Other attempts in connection include former band mate Ivan (Rhys Ifans), the cool guy who might just be a little too beaten down by the man for Roger’s sake, and Beth (Jennifer Jason Leigh) whom while on a lunch date makes the insinuation that it certainly will not be followed by a future dinner date. The body language she exhibits, panting the restaurant staff for the check, is priceless. She’s trying not to be rude to Roger, but she is, but it is for her better self-preservation.

The house dog Mahler gets sick, perhaps from rat poison that the gardener’s laid out on the grass. You can sense the large panic and distress in Phillip over the phone (you forget what Phillip looks like in the movie since the camera views only one side of the conversation). But Roger insists that Mahler will be okay, that he can handle the vet, and the animal hospital and that nothing will happen to Mahler. But Roger doesn’t drive. This means he has to call and rely upon Florence.

What a lovely, kind and attractive girl Florence happens to be. Roger keeps coming onto her, pressing onto her, then cruelly stepping away with a caustic insult. Florence is way too good for Roger, or for any of the Rogers in the world. Mordantly funny, in a way, that she is just too good of a person to ever say “no” to somebody. In a way, she is one to get stepped on and stepped on but always apologizes but never receives an apology. She is four years out of college, she explains, and feels that she is of no value in the world.

From a wider perspective all Roger has to do is to be a responsible housesitter for six weeks, watch the dog, and not cause any harm to anybody. But he can’t handle that little, as he causes much harm to others and to himself. This is the kind of harm that is less visibly apparent. When a couple of visitors throw a house party blowup regardless to permission, instead of Roger shooing people away he joins in on the drug usage, and other carnivalesque acts. Then he hurts his friends feelings, callously and cowardly, before retreating to his own self-loathing.

What is similar to Baumbach’s lead protagonist Roger as to Nicole Kidman as Margot in his last picture, is that both of them seek love and then engender cruel rejection of the people they sought love from. Similar also is their willingness to show sensitivity and tenderness for the sake of appearing as if they have those qualities, and then turning off those qualities when it doesn’t directly benefit them. These are the definitions of borderline personality disorder, a mental disorder that is not mentioned out loud and clear in Baumbach’s films, and yet this is what he has been exploring thematically within his films.

Then again I am not a head doctor, only a film critic. So I may have misspoken. It is not conventional for a film critic to make a diagnosis on mental disorders. I looked up dozens of reviews on the web however on “Margot at the Wedding” (more insufferable, less engaging than this new film) and a small percentage of reviews willingly marked Kidman’s character as a borderline personality disorder case.

I do however want to quote the long deceased Francois Truffaut. “I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema.” With “Greenberg” Baumbach somehow gets you to laugh at the agony. Roger is a neurotic raging bull.

Go to the official site at http://www.filminfocus.com/focusfeatures/film/greenberg/

Grade: B+